


Rise

by BowAndDagger



Series: Scraps and (Un)Finished Parts [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Clone Rebellion, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Slave Uprising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BowAndDagger/pseuds/BowAndDagger
Summary: Anakin eavesdrops.Things change.A Revolution begins.
Relationships: 501st Legion & Anakin Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Implied Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Scraps and (Un)Finished Parts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1244387
Comments: 5
Kudos: 144





	Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: Anakin starts the Rebel Alliance a few years sooner.
> 
> This has been gathering dust for months now. If anyone likes the idea enough to continue it, feel free to do so! Just credit me, please.
> 
> Enjoy!

I.

It starts when the 501 st led by Jedi General Anakin Skywalker disappears.

It continues when Kenobi’s 212 th and then Koon’s 104 th vanish.

When three Generals, their ships and entire battalions seemingly fade into thin air, it attracts attention. The Holonet is abuzz with whispers and conspiracy theories.

The Jedi Council is aghast; that Skywalker would run off on one of his adventures is something expected at this point. But Kenobi and Koon, too? And with their whole divisions? Without telling anyone or even informing the Council? No, none of them had seen that coming.

The Senate is in shambles; with three of their best defenders gone they are left vulnerable.

And, of course, one Sith in disguise is utterly furious.

No one – not the Jedi, not the clones, not the Republic or the Separatists – know where they are or what happened to them.

Sidious does not even have to ask Amidala if she knows anything: her pallor and the bruises under her eyes barely covered by make-up speak for her.

The Galaxy wonders.

The Republic panics.

The Separatists gain ground.

A Revolution begins.

II.

It starts with Anakin overhearing a conversation.

Not that it had been his original intention. No, because he wanted to be a good Master for his Padawan, he had been trying to perfect his skill in shielding his Force presence; a useful skill to have during war-time. Except his shields kept fluctuating: working perfectly for hours at a time and then, unexpectedly, failing for no reason and revealing him to every Force user around. Feeling like he was about to destroy something in his frustration, he had gone to the Senate in an attempt to air his mind and see Padme while still attempting to train.

(In one world, his shaky shields fade when he’s in the Senate before he can hear anything incriminating, leading down the line to chaos, death and the birth of Darth Vader.

In this world, despite his mounting horror and rage, the shields hold.)

Palpatine and Dooku continue with their conversation. Both remain unaware of their shaken audience.

Anakin learns of Sidious’ identity when the Count defers to the Chancellor (“ _ The Chancellor of the Republic! His friend! _ ” his mind shouts over and over like a broken record) and calls him Master.

He learns of the control chips inside his men and their brothers’ brains.

He learns of Order 66.

III.

Later, much later, when he digs himself out of the closet he fell into to try to ward off a panic attack, when he feels like he is not going to break apart, when his shields fail him once more and he is summoned to the Chancellor’s office, it takes every drop of his willpower not to hurl on the man’s well-polished shoes.

He manages to keep an affable face only by sheer strength of will; his focus half on the ongoing conversation about the war and the Council’s inaction and half concentrating on not pulling his ‘saber on the karking son of a sarlac. He barely keeps himself from doing so: it’s a near thing. But Anakin knows he cannot act now; not when the Jedi are on the verge of being declared traitors, not when the men are one misstep away from being transformed into flesh-droids, not when he does not yet have any proof of wrongdoings.

So Anakin does what a cornered Skywalker does best: he improvises. He puts a lid on his emotions – putting to the test all the lessons the Temple and Obi-wan tried to teach him – and forces himself to only project weariness and faint contentment around him, masking the anger and sense of betrayal he feels to his very bones. He draws on his not-often used patience and plasters his usual smirk on his lips. He can do this. He can endure in silence the betrayal of someone he thought of as a friend and mentor. He must for the sake of everything and everyone he holds dear.

(It’s just enough to placate Palpatine who had been puzzled at feeling Skywalker inside the Senate without having first sensing him approaching. But the young man is acting as he always does: emotions fluctuating wildly under a thin veil of control tainted by weariness and hardly hiding his anger. Anger at the Council, no doubt.

The older man retreats to his own mind. There is no need to worry. All his schemes for a Sith Empire and a new Apprentice are going well. Everything is as he premeditated.)

Meanwhile, behind the friendly smile and benign chat, Anakin plans.

As the conversation finally comes to an end, he can only feel deep relief and try not to show it. But Anakin is a Skywalker and he wouldn’t be a Skywalker if he did not take any risks. He has a magnificent opportunity right when he is about to step out of the office and he takes it with relish:

“You know, Chancellor… I’m aware that Jedi are not supposed to hate and I know it makes me a very poor Jedi but…If there is one person I hate more than anything else, even those Force-forsaken slavers, it’s whoever and whatever this Sith Lord Master of Dooku is. I hate him so much I hope he chokes on his spit and dies. It makes me unfit to bear the title of Jedi but… it’d be a good riddance, don’t you think so? But I suppose it would never happen…a pity.”

He throws a smile over his shoulder, all teeth and cold determination, before striding out of the private Chambers before the Sith can answer him.

(In this world, Vader ceases to be before he even came to exist.)

IV.

Unwilling to spend even one more second in close proximity to that monster in disguise, Anakin takes the direction of his speeder. As he walks, the young Knight casts a longing look towards the Naboo Senatorial Chambers. He cannot go see his angel, not when he will not be able to look at her without breaking down and telling her everything. Padme is fantastic, a great woman and friend and one of the best people to have at his back during a battle but…But her knowing would put her in danger. Anakin wants – no, he needs – to protect her. And right now, when she is in the middle of the Senate and right next to a Sith able to read the minds of those around him, safe means not being in the loop. So he will not go to her, not yet. When he has a plan, when he has the means to protect her, Ashoka, Obi-wan, his men, the Republic and the Jedi Order, then he will tell her everything.

But not yet.

Artoo greats him with a series of happy beeps, his dome swivelling to follow his Pilot as he approaches the speeder.

Anakin smiles, one hand petting briefly the droid before hopping into the driver seat and flying off.

He leaves the Senate with one last look towards where Padme is. Despite the simmering rage and the mounting mix of panic-worry upsetting him, he is surprised to feel lighter, freer in a way he has not felt in a very long time. Not since he came to Coruscant to be a Jedi, at the very least.

V.

Obi-wan is not sorry.

He would like to say he is – like any good, proper Jedi would – but he is not. And he is unrepentant about it, too.

Yes, his actions scream of attachment. Yes, this is very much un-Jedi of him. But at this point, he does not care what the Council thinks of his actions. Their thoughts on their fugue or desertion – whatever they want to call it – do not matter. Anakin, Ashoka and their men’s well-being do.

As his men are cycled one by one in the medical bay of the  _ Negotiator _ to get rid of their control chips, as the trap the Sith engineered is deactivated, as good men are being freed from enslavement to the Republic, Obi-wan can only feel deep relief.

VI.

It begins with Anakin telling Obi-wan everything he overhead in the Senate with Sidious and Dooku. Not that it had been his original intention. Again.

(He seemed to make snap decisions these days…but, well, they were good decisions for a change. So…)

No, at first, Anakin had thought no one would believe him about the seemingly nice and incorruptible Chancellor being a Sith. Yes, Obi-wan did not like him; but Obi-wan did not like politicians – with a few exceptions like Padme or Senator Organa – on the principle that they were politicians. His old Master believing that kind of accusation, with no concrete proof? No chance.

So Anakin planned to tell him exactly nothing of the situation.

Except that, for once, the fabled Skywalker’s skill at improvisation utterly failed him and Anakin found himself babbling about nonsensical things in an effort to mask his plans. Of course, his Master’s inquisitive eyebrow and dubitative gaze took the fight out of him and the young Knight told him everything.

It was the best decision of his life – not taking into account his marriage to Padme or taking Ahsoka on as his Padawan, of course.

(Said Padawan may have taken after him a bit too much, it turns out.)

VII.

Telling Master Koon of their plans had not been Anakin’s decision.

Not that it has been Ahsoka’s but, well…Apparently, improvisation skills failing them in the face of the ones they love and respect the most is a trait shared between Master and Padawan.

And so, Plo and the Wolfpack are brought into the loop. Explosively, courtesy of an overprotective Wolffe.

Then, said Commander had taken the whole of the Wolf Pack with him and camped inside the med bay, refusing to leave until every single member was freed of the chips and thus, safe to be among Jedi. No amount of reassurance from their General, or the other Jetiise, convinced them otherwise. Soon, the rest of the 104 th battalion had joined them in their self-imposed exile.

Maybe, in another life, Plo Koon would have been surprised at their refusal to endanger him, if not for his own strong emotion following the announcement of Order 66 and the fact the 501 st and the 212nd had done the same.

VIII.

It starts by rumours finally reaching the Core Worlds.

“Haven’t you heard? The Zigerrian Slave Empire has fallen.”

“I heard the Hutts are being hunted.”

“Jabba the Hutt and his associates are dead.”

“Did you hear? There are several slave revolutions in the Outer Rim.”

(At long last, Anakin returns to his homeworld and fulfills a promise. Tatooine is free.)

IX.

The clones of the three rogue battalions – renamed the Alliance by Ashoka, pushed by an uncharacteristically mischievous Force – decide to keep their colours. Except inverted. The white they paint their armours with is only there to accentuate the blue of the 501 st , the grey-green of the 104 th and the gold-yellow of the 212 th .

Each of them painstakingly depicts three entwined circles on their helmets, arms or chest. Their new symbol. One circle for their Jetiise, One for them and their still enslaved brothers and One for those they protect.

They will free the slaves.


End file.
